News and Information for People who Love Comics Vol. 7 No. 1

See Palm on page 3

Introducing…

…In the Palm of your hand(?!)

See ComicBase 7.0 on page 2

Forgive us for smiling, but man, is this thing ever cool!

The latest version of ComicBase, version 7.0, boasts cur-rent listings and prices for an astonishing 200,000 issue listings, making it by far the largest and most complete comic book database and price guide ever published. Over 15,000 different comic titles are covered, ranging from 1898’s Pluck and Luck to the latest titles from Marvel, DC, and over 1,400 other publishers.

Working in conjunction with the folks from Comics Buyer’s Guide, we managed to add about 35,000 new issues over ComicBase 6 (the previous record holder). Golden Age titles got particular attention, and we’ve devoted countless hours to indexing and pricing thousands upon thousands of these hard-to-locate issues. Of course, we’ve also kept up with the hundreds of new releases that happen each month, as well as constantly updating and revising the entire database.

As impressive a reference as ComicBase is, it really comes into its own as a tool for managing your own collection. Since so much information comes built-in, tracking your own inventory can be as easy and point-and-click.

And in ComicBase 7, we’ve made even that easier. The interface has been further polished, adding contextual menus that let you do common tasks such as adding new issues by simply right-clicking (Control-clicking on Macs) on a title’s issue list and choosing the New Issue from the menu that appears. We’ve also used contextual menus to give easier access to many former shortcuts that used to require you to memorize obscure keyboard commands.

What’s New at a Glance:• Over 200,000 issue listings• Over 15,000 titles• Over 10,000 full-color illustrations• Updated pricing for 2002–2003• Export to Palm or PocketPC• Expanded Find with compound

searches• Improved interface• Larger screen support• Expanded Mass Change• Deluxe Edition with Palm and PocketPC

tools, plus all-new creator interviews and thousands of additional covers

The world’s largest comic book database…

Like a lot of comic collectors, I can recite the first appearances of countless characters from memory, but my mind fails me when I’m trying to remember my own collection. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been browsing at a comic convention wondering, “Gee, was it issue #39 of Hellblazer I was missing or #40?”. Not wanting to miss out on a good deal (and not wanting to take the time to boot up my laptop and check ComicBase), I inevitably pick wrong. As a result, I now have 3 different copies of Hellblazer #40, and am still looking for #39.

Page 2

ComicBase 7.0(Continued from Page 1)

Fully updated pricing for 2002-2003Working in conjunction with Comics Buyer’s Guide, we’ve fully revised and updated the pricing on all 200,000 issues in ComicBase to keep up with the sometimes-tumultuous activities of the current comic market. As CBG readers know, it’s been a heck of a ride for the market this year, and no other guide gives as accurate an appraisal of your collection’s real worth as ComicBase does.

To accomplish this, we’ve sifted through tens of thousands of online auctions, surveyed retail and convention prices from coast to coast, and brought decades of comic ex-perience to bear to answer one question: “What would a savvy person, with some choice, pay for this comic?” The result is the most hard-hitting, well-researched guide in the business.

More powerful searchingComicBase has always been a whiz at letting you quickly and easily find everything from the 1st appearance of the Funky Flashman to the collected works of Neil Gaiman. Unfortunately, this simplicity came at the price of some flexibility, and if you wanted to do really complex searches (e.g. “Show me everything Neil Gaiman wrote for either DC or Vertigo between 1990 and 1995”) you were out of luck.

But now ComicBase 7 makes it possible to handle even the most outrageous searches with ease. Simply choose the “Narrow Search Results” and “Append to Search Results” options in the Find dialog, and you can easily locate ev-erything from “All the Marvel comics which I have more than one copy of” to “Judge Dredd comics which also included special appearances of Judge Death, and which weren’t listed as being reprints.”

Best of all, once you’ve found the comics you’re looking for, you can view their details, modify their listings, or even print the list of comics as a custom report.

Mathematical Mass ChangeComicBase’s recently expanded Mass Change is a real power tool, letting you instantly change values across whole titles at once, or even the entire database. It’s perfect for doing things like saying “Set the selling price of all my comics to their current guide value.” ComicBase 7 builds on this, letting you also add mathematical expressions to the mix. This makes it easy to do things such running a sale where you’d offer selected titles at half their regular book value. ComicBase will even let you automatically round the results to sensible values, so you don’t try selling that $1.75 comic for 87.5 cents at your half-off sale.

Deluxe Edition with the new Bonus Disk 3Starting with ComicBase 5, we introduced Deluxe Editions of ComicBase which include a second CD packed with thousands of covers and other extras that we couldn’t fit on the regular version. This year, the Deluxe Edition comes with a brand new Bonus Disk #3, which can be combined with previous years’ Bonus Disks (also available for pur-chase separately) to give you a library with over 27,000 comic images!

In complement huge expansion of Golden Age titles in ComicBase 7, Bonus Disk #3 comes packed with thou-sands of cover pictures from the 1940s and 1950s, includ-ing nearly complete cover galleries from Flash Comics, Marvel Mystery Comics, All-American Comics, Planet Comics, and hundreds of others.

We also are honored to present one of the final interviews with the late Dan DeCarlo, talking about the genesis of Josie and the Pussycats, Archie, and Millie the Model. In addition, look on the Bonus Disk for never-before-seen interviews with Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon), Mike Allred (Madman), Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti (Spider-Man, Ash), and Matt Wagner (Grendel, Sandman Mystery The-atre) and more.

Need another reason to get the Deluxe Edition? Bonus Disk 3 also includes tools for both Palm and PocketPC computers to allow you to easily transfer your ComicBase’s inventory reports to your Palm or PocketPC computer.The much-missed Dan DeCarlo, creator of Josie & the Pussycats

Palm(Continued from Page 1)

Page 3

The Standard Catalog of Comic Books:

The Ultimate Book for People Who Love ComicsIf you haven’t seen Krause Publications’ new Standard Catalog of Comic Books in your local bookstore yet, you absolutely owe it to yourself to check it out. It is, quite simply, the best printed reference to American comics that’s ever been published.

This mammoth tome is some 1,240 pages in length, and includes listings and current pricing on over 140,000 dif-ferent comics, as well as write-ups, illustrations, and even circulation statistics! There simply has never been a book in the comics field with the same level of detail and scope.

If I sound like a proud uncle gushing over a new baby, it’s because we had the privilege of collaborating with the Krause folks on this book. We shared data and research which made its way in electronic form into ComicBase, and now at last in printed form in this mighty volume. Even if you already own ComicBase, it’s a joy to leaf through this book and realize what a landmark it represents for the comics field.

The Standard Catalog of Comic Books is available in soft-cover for $34.95 at your local book store or comic shop—or directly from Krause Publications at www.krause.com.

Of course, carrying around a printed list of my comics would also solve the problem, but my inventory changes constantly, and I’d feel like I was single-handedly depopu-lating America’s forests if I tried to print it each time I wanted an up-to-date list.

A couple of years ago at the ComicBase User’s Group Meeting in San Diego, several users suggested the answer: “So when are you going to do a Palm version of ComicBase?”

I’ll admit, knowing all too well how re-ally huge ComicBase was, I had no idea how we’d fit it—or even a good-sized chunk of it—on computers that typically sported a mere 2-8 MB of RAM. Never-theless, we began quietly looking into what we could do in this area.

Although managing ComicBase da-tabase records on the diminutive Palm didn’t prove practical, we had a breakthrough when we realized that it wasn’t nearly as important to manage your inventory on the Palm as it was to simply have your inventory with you. That way, you could just whip out your Palm to check inventory and prices when you’re

on the go. The hardcore data entry could wait until you got back to your main computer (with its relatively huge screen, memory, speed, and disk space).

In ComicBase 7, we added the ability to easily export your title reports, issue checklists, and price lists to specially-formatted HTML files. These can be easily posted to web sites, or uploaded to both Palm and PocketPC computers. In addition, ComicBase 7 Deluxe Edition includes iSilo, an incredibly cool freeware/shareware program for Palm and PocketPC computers which lets you read these exported files in ultra-compact book form.

Best of all, you can now keep your entire inventory list with you, letting you look up books and prices with just a couple of taps. Having road-tested it at several shops recently, I think this is one of the most useful things we’ve ever done—particularly when you’re faced with a stack of Classics Illustrateds and need to determine what printing cor-

responds to which HRN number—or just whether you’re trying to remember if that long-sought-after Hellblazer issue was #39 or #40.

A limited number of signed hardcover editions are also available.

Human Computing4509 Thistle DriveSan Jose, CA 95136

Tel: 408/266-6883www.comicbase.com

I want my ComicBase 7!

Name: ..............................................................................................

Mailing Address: ..............................................................................

......................................................................................................... City: .......................................... State: ............ Zip: ...................

Country (if not U.S.) .........................................................................

Phone (day): ....................................................................................

Email: .............................................................................................

Reg. # (required for upgrades) ..........................................................

Payment method (choose one)

� Check Bill my: � Visa � Mastercard � Discover

#: ..................................................... Exp. Date: ................

PRSRT STDU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDSAN JOSE, CA

PERMIT NO. 3352TM

Please send me (check selections):

Full Versions � ComicBase 7 Deluxe Edition (Incl. Bonus Disk 3) $149.00

� ComicBase 7 Standard Edition $129.00

Upgrades (Requires Current Serial #)� Upgrade from ComicBase 6 to ComicBase 7 Deluxe Edition (Incl. Bonus Disk 3) $49.95

� Upgrade from ComicBase 6 to ComicBase 7 Standard $34.95

� Upgrade from ComicBase 5 (or earlier) to ComicBase 7 Deluxe Edition (Incl. Bonus Disk 3) $64.95

� Upgrade from ComicBase 5 (or earlier) to ComicBase 7 Standard $49.95

Bonus Disks� Bonus Disk 1 $24.95

� Bonus Disk 2 $24.95

� Bonus Disk 3 (Included with Deluxe Edition) $24.95

Subtotal: ..............

California residents add 8.25% sales tax ..............

Shipping & handling ($4.00 domestic/$8.50 foreign) ..............

TOTAL: ..............

To order ComicBase, fill out the form below and send it to ComicBase Orders, Human Computing, 4509 Thistle Drive, San Jose, CA 95136-2014. You can also fax in your orders to (408) 266-5869, or order online at www.comicbase.com.